Just a place to share some thoughts

Day: September 4, 2011

This was something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time but just have elected not to post about it until now. We’ve all heard about the "invisible web" and tracking and privacy, etc. Right? Today, I think we’ve just resigned ourselves to acknowledging that this is the price of being online.

How many times do you visit a blog or a webpage and see all of the fancy banners and advertising? Annoying, to be sure, but it can be more than that. I read this article this morning and it reinforced the fact that I had installed Ghostery in my Chrome browser a while back. Every time that I visit a website that has a tracker or beacon I get a little popup that lets me know what was trying to track my browsing.

I then visited one of the websites that I frequent regularly for ideas. I’ll bet that you frequent it as well. It is loaded with all kinds of banners which have all kinds of trackers attached to them. Here was the popup that was produced.

Now, the resource might be something as simple as just counting the number of visitors. But, does it do more than that? You do the research and make your own decision. In the meantime, you might want to download and install Ghostery in your browser and see just what is happening that you may not know about.

I used to have banners, etc. on this blog but removed them a long time ago when I saw that the embed codes also included tracking devices. Even now, if you visit here, there are four trackers, presumably from WordPress.com.

Short of not going on the internet, there isn’t much that you can do about these things. However, Ghostery does its best to block them as they come along. Just be advised that there may end up being websites that don’t work properly if you’re blocking things!

“Four Ways QR Codes Could Revolutionize Education” was the title of the article that appeared in my Zite reader this morning. I tucked it away in my Diigo account after a quick read for a second, longer read later. Then, the lawn needed cutting so I got a chance to think about the article again.

I think that I must have a different concept of what “revolutionize” means than the author. I’ve been intrigued with QR Codes and have shared some of my learning in this blog as I dug into the concept. I can see some uses for the codes.

In classrooms where students have difficulties keying long URLs into a browser, scanning a code could quickly point the student to an internet or other address;

In a trophy cabinet, scanning a code could send you to a repository of pictures, movies, stories, etc. outlining the winning that went into obtaining the trophy;

Certainly, anytime that you can get rid of mounds of paper and point people with devices to electronic resources has a nice feel to it;

You can pack a bunch of information into a small area;

But revolutionary?

I’m not so sure that I’m ready to use my R to call the suggestions in the article revolutionary.

Digital Portfolios;

Connecting with Parents;

Engaging Students;

Easing the Transition into College

The above are important things that should be foremost in everyone’s mind already anyway. I really can’t see the leap that having a QR Code would make that would revolutionize anything except perhaps the clerical work. I see it as a parallel to using tinyurl. It’s nice; it’s convenient; it saves a great deal of keying; it’s accurate. But revolutionary?

This fall the University of Michigan will roll out an interactive presentation tool called LectureTools, created by one of its own professors, to more than 4,000 students. The software is designed to keep students engaged during presentations using laptops and smart phones, especially in large lectures.

Powerful teaching tools. Better workflows for you and your students. Practical professional development services. A thriving community of educators sharing best practices and peer-reviewed resources. The industry leading marketplace of digital curriculum.

It was recently brought to my attention (via a tweet) that Adobe Acrobat can be used to generate QR (Quick Response) codes. So I did a little digging and discovered it was pretty easy to accomplish – who knew?

Apple Inc. is no mere computer company, thank you. It’s a way of life. Think about it — are there people riding around with Microsoft logos on their cars? Do people propose marriage at the grand openings of stores that sell PCs? If you consider yourself a true “Apple person,” you better hope you get all of these questions right.

The greatest innovations are the ones we take for granted, like light bulbs, refrigeration and penicillin. But in a world where the miraculous very quickly becomes common-place, how can a company, especially one as big as Google, maintain a spirit of innovation year after year?

When Thom McKay realized that his son had figured out how to get on the social networking site even though his New Jersey middle school had blocked it, he asked the boy in astonishment how he had done it.

“Pretty easy, Dad,” his son retorted. “Don’t be an idiot. We know more about computers than the teachers do.”